Whisper in the Dark (A Thriller) by Robert Gregory Browne Page A

head. It was obvious now that Carmody wasn’t boinking Escalante. It was equally obvious that he , Frank Blackburn, was one of the few new additions to the task force that Escalante had mentioned.
    He hadn’t lost his case after all.
    As distasteful as working with a hormonal basket bunny like Carmody might be, if the alternative meant being left out in the cold, he’d gladly take one in the gonads for the department. Besides, being up close and personal again with Miss Wonder Butt’s wonder butt was not entirely objectionable.
    “Detective Blackburn? Do you have any problem with that?”
    “Uh,” Blackburn said, feeling the heat of Carmody’s gaze on him. He was afraid to look directly at her. “No problem at all.”
    “Good,” Escalante said. “I want the two of you to talk to Tolan and try to determine if this conflict is more a hindrance than a help. If you still think he’s the man for the job, then get him back to work on that witness right away. I want to know exactly what she saw.”
    Easier said than done, Blackburn thought.
    “Did Detective De Mello come up with you?”
    Blackburn nodded. “He’s right outside.”
    “I understand he’s one of our best background analysts.”
    “And resident lard ass,” Ron Worsley murmured. The first words he’d spoken since Blackburn entered the room.
    Scattered laughter broke out, but abruptly ended when Escalante shot the offenders a look. He turned his gaze on Blackburn again. “Tell De Mello he’s part of the team. And, lard ass or not, I expect you all to utilize him fully and without remark. Understood?”
    Guilty nods around the table.
    “Loud and clear,” Blackburn said.
    He still didn’t look at Carmody. He could feel her outrage from ten feet away.
     

17
     
    T HEY SPENT THE next several minutes slicing up the investigative pie, Blackburn still reeling from his double dose of luck—good and bad. The task force was split into five two-man field teams. Each team would put the magnifying glass to two of the prior murders, starting from scratch, sifting through the murder books, reinterviewing witnesses, while Blackburn and Carmody concentrated on Janovic and Jane Doe.
    After the meeting, Blackburn quickly briefed De Mello, who took the news with a predictable lack of enthusiasm but promised to step up his efforts on the victim’s background and push Billy on cracking the Palm Pilot.
    Blackburn told him about the BOMBSHELL magazine page sitting on his desk. “Get the ad agency’s name from the fragrance manufacturer and find out who the model is. I can’t be a hundred percent sure it’s our gal, but I like the odds.”
    He was thinking about those odds as he headed for the stairs to the parking lot. Just as he reached the stairwell door, Carmody caught up to him.
    Oh, goody.
    “ You’re in a hurry.” She was still struggling to contain her rage and he suddenly felt as if he was standing too close to a hornet’s nest.
    “I’m meeting with Tolan, remember?”
    “Aren’t you forgetting something?”
    Blackburn studied her. “And that would be?”
    “Your partner,” she said, without even a hint of humor.
    He eyed her dully, then opened the door and waved her past him. “After you.”
    They were quiet as they descended the steps, Blackburn silently cursing Escalante. When they reached the ground-floor landing, Carmody gestured him to a halt. Her frown was so deep, the muscles in her jaw had to be screaming in agony.
    “Let’s get this out in the open right now,” she said. “If we’re going to be working together again, I think we need some ground rules.”
    “If?” Blackburn said. “Where in Escalante’s little speech did you hear an ‘if’?”
    “Don’t start, Frank. This is exactly the kind of thing that drives me crazy and you know it.”
    “What I know is that we’re stuck together whether we like it or not. So let’s just make the best of it, okay?”
    “Fine,” Carmody said. “But if you make one crack about